U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20590
202-366-4000
U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
Spring 2024
Downloadable PDF [953 KB]
In this issue:
Improving Pedestrian Safety on Urban Arterials: Learning from Australasia (continued)
Proven Safety Counter-measures for Vulnerable Road Users:
New Resources from Partner Agencies
Source: FHWA
As mentioned previously in this newsletter, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) completed a study on Australian and New Zealand approaches to reducing pedestrian fatalities and serious injuries on urban, signalized arterial roadways and is working to promote certain key recommendations that came out of the trip:
Ping Sim
Transport Safety Technical Lead
Auckland Transport
ping.sim@at.govt.nz
Jessica Rattray
Team Leader Safe System
Road Safety
Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency
jessica.rattray@nzta.govt.nz
FHWA and the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center published a poster on the FHWA report, Improving Safety on Urban Arterials: Learning from Australasia. The poster was developed to share findings on approaches to reduce pedestrian fatalities and highlight how learnings from Australia and New Zea-land may be applied to policies and practices in the United States. The poster was presented at the 2023 American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Safety Summit in Kansas City, MO. Resources from a four-part webinar series on the report are also available, along with a summary brief to learn more about the study and findings here.
During the 2024 Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting, the multi-agency team responsible for the recent report conducted a comprehensive dissemination campaign as part of implementing the recommendations from their research. Under the FHWA’s Global Benchmarking Program, (GBP) the Office of International Programs (HPIP) supported the team’s study tour to Australia and New Zealand in 2022 to research these countries’ work implementing the Safe System. HPIP provided additional support to invite two peers from New Zealand to attend TRB and accompany the study team in sharing insights from the report: Jessica Rattray, Team Lead Safe System for the Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency, and Ping Sim, Transport Safety Technical Lead, Auckland Transport.
The study team, Ms. Rattray, and Ms. Sim briefed U.S. DOT leadership on New Zealand’s approaches. The study team also held a workshop on Sunday, January 7th, attended by over 120 people representing Federal, State, and local transportation agencies, Metropolitan Planning Organizations, academic and research institutions, non-profit and advocacy organizations. The workshop focused on generating dialogue about the report recommendations.
The study team also briefed and conducted question and answer sessions with nine TRB committees representing safety, planning, policy, pedestrians, bicyclists, data, and analysis:
FHWA is currently preparing a program of work to support U.S. agency adoption of the report findings, as part of FHWA’s focus on road user safety, Complete Streets, and the National Roadway Safety Strategy. Stay tuned for more information from this newsletter, or contact Tamara Redmon for information.
Click on CTRL/poster image to view full size version.
The Pedestrian and Bicycle Crash Analysis Tool (PBCAT) – Version 3 – has a new home and can be accessed here. PBCAT is a crash typing software product intended to assist State and local pedestrian/bicycle coordinators, planners, and engineers with improving walking and bicycling safety. It is designed to help road safety professionals improve their understanding of non-motorist crashes.
Transportation agencies can make their road systems safer through development and analysis of a database containing details associated with crashes between motor vehicles and pedestrians or bicyclists. After developing a database of crash information from PBCAT output, the user can analyze the data to produce reports and help select countermeasures to address problem areas. The application also allows users to categorize their non-motorist crashes and create a data set for analysis. PBCAT has an accompanying User Guide that provides detailed information on how to use the software.
For more information or questions regarding PBCAT, please contact Ana Maria Eigen.
FHWA’s Proven Safety Countermeasures initiative (PSCi) is a collection of 28 countermeasures and strategies effective in reducing roadway fatalities and serious injuries on our Nation’s highways. The countermeasures are categorized in 5 topic areas, once of which is "pedestrian/bicyclists." There are some new resources to help support and encourage the use of PSCs.
FHWA recently published a video on the benefits of using speed safety cameras in school zones to reduce fatalities and injuries for all road users, particularly walking children. Speed safety cameras have shown to reduce fatalities and injuries by 47 percent and are part of the FHWA list of Proven Safety Countermeasures and strategies to achieve national safety goals.
There are also a couple of new resources released related to bicycle lanes. The first of these is a fact sheet on the safety benefits, applications, and considerations of bicycle lanes, which have shown to significantly reduce crashes. Converting traditional or flush buffered bicycle lanes to a separated bicycle lane with flexible delineator posts can reduce crashes up to 53 percent and bicycle lane additions can reduce crashes up to 49 percent, depending on the roadway type.
Source: http://www.pedbikeimages.org/
Toole Design Group
In addition, FHWA released its March/April issue of Innovator, highlighting work on active transportation safety measures. The article, Separated Bike Lanes–Making Roads Safer for Bicyclists, showcased Richmond, Virginia’s work building separated bike lanes. The issue also includes an article on how Every Day Counts innovations are featured in award-winning safety projects. An example is the South Jersey Transportation Planning Organization, which used a community engagement strategy to identify and prioritize locations with the greatest safety needs for people walking and biking, developed a safety action plan, and implemented more visible crosswalks, shorter crossings, and slower lane speeds at those points.
Transportation agencies are strongly encouraged to consider widespread implementation of PSCs to accelerate the achievement of local, tribal, State, and National safety goals. These strategies are designed for all road users and all kinds of roads–from rural to urban, from high-volume freeways to less traveled two-lane State and county roads, from signalized crossings to horizontal curves, and everything in between. Each countermeasure addresses at least one safety focus area – speed management, intersections, roadway
The Crash Modification Factors (CMF) Most Wanted List is now available. This list represents areas or specific countermeasures for which the CMF Clearinghouse does not have CMF information and represents an analysis of user searches made from July 2019 to September 2023. The items listed represent areas where crash-based safety evaluation research is needed – a CMF "Most Wanted" list grouped by themes. This list can be used by the safety research community to prioritize research needs statements, particularly those which deal with evaluations of specific countermeasures. There are several listed for pedestrians and bicyclist safety: Bike box, Sharrows (bicycle shared lane markings), Cross-walk visibility (decorative crosswalks) and Pedestrian accessibility.
The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) launched a new Active Transportation webpage as part of its commitment to increase transit and active transportation trips by 50 percent over 2020 levels by 2026. This page compiles descriptions and links to resources that: detail the safety, economic, climate, equity, and other benefits of active transportation and active transportation infrastructure; summarize active transportation work at several Federal agencies; describe USDOT funding programs and initiatives; and provide announcements, related links, and documents.
The FHWA Office of Highway Policy will hold a special webinar on bicycle and pedestrian count data gathering and reporting on June 11, 2024 at 2:00 pm ET to help improve accuracy and efficiency of nonmotorized data reporting. Participants will be shown how to code fields of the Nonmotorized Station Record and a demo of the new Station Record Generator Tool meant to help simplify data alignment for error-free up-loads. The webinar is open to all and professionals in nonmotorized data collection, processing, and reporting are encouraged to attend. Contact Steven Jessberger for more information.
The Office of Highway Policy also invites State DOTs and other transportation organizations to submit their geospatial bicycle route data to the National Bicycle Network Portal. The project aims to collect and share bicycle route data to help in future investments, designs, and plans to ensure that biking is a safe, efficient, and equitable travel mode. Contact Rafael Nieto for additional information or to schedule a demo of the portal.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released its Overview of Motor Vehicle Traffic Crashes in 2022. It reports that in 2022, 7,522 people were killed while walking, a 0.7 percent increase from 2021, and 67,336 people were injured, an 11 percent increase from 2021. Also in 2022, 1,105 people were killed while riding a bicycle, a 13 percent increase from 2021, and 46,195 were injured, also an 11 percent increase from the year before. In a 10-year comparison of 2013 data to 2022 data, the number of people killed while walking in urban areas increased by 81 percent and the number of people killed while riding a bicycle in urban areas increased by 79 percent. NHTSA also released Early Estimate of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities in 2023, estimating that 40,990 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes, a decrease of about 3.6 percent as compared to 2022. This report does not include estimates by road user types in traffic fatalities.
This Pedestrian and Bike Forum is available on the Web at http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/ped_bike/pedforum/
To receive information on future newsletters and pedestrian and bicyclist safety, please use the e-subscription service provided on this site: U.S. DOT Federal Highway Administration (govdelivery.com)
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Tamara Redmon,
Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety Program Manager
Federal Highway Administration
1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Room E71-303
Washington, DC 20590
Phone: 202-366-4077 | E-mail: tamara.redmon@dot.gov
